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How much is an airplane bathroom worth to you?

We've all become more or less resigned to paying airlines for services that until recently were free. Coughing up $15 or so to check a bag—any bag? Fine. Paying for in-flight food or a mighty power-nap sack? Fine again, maybe. But what about having to pay to use the bathroom?

Everyone's favorite publicity-mad cheapskate carrier, Ryanair, has managed to do what it does best: Get people riled up. This time it's a proposal to start charging people £1 to get into the airplane bathroom—the plan would be to put coin slots on the doors. The chief executive, Michael O'Leary, billed this idea as a net gain for the world, saying that Ryanair's always looking for ways to "lower the cost of air travel to make it affordable and easier for all passengers to fly with us."

Ryanair's marketing team did make the necessary backtrack, admitting that "Michael makes a lot of this stuff up as he goes along." Another employee, however, also made it clear that there's "no legal requirement for an aircraft to have a toilet on board." In other words, Ryanair could start charging for potty access if they really wanted to.

And so that got us thinking. If airlines did start charging for bathroom access, what do you think a reasonable fee would be?

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